Happy Birthday to Nugget and Velvet, 22 years later

Velvet (L) and Nugget (R), 1991

Nugget and Velvet, Backyard of my house in Lawrence, KS, 1995

Golden Nugget - June 9, 1985 - June 13, 1998

Misty Velvet XVI - June 19, 1985 - August 24, 1996

It's always tough for me around this time of year when June arrives, because I'm always reminded of my puppies, especially on their birthdays. The only real flaw that dogs have is that they don't live nearly long enough, especially large dogs.

But I think they've come back for another round, to new owners. I've seen it in my dreams. More vividly than anything else I've ever dreamt.

So wherever you are, sleep well, my puppies. I hope you have all the chew toys and squeak balls you desire and days of running amok with reckless abandon, whether you came back to this world, or the next. You both had more love for everything and everyone than I could even comprehend, and this world and my life would be a colder place without such love. I would give anything I have just to spend a few minutes with you again, but I know I can't have that.

The gnawing loneliness and guilt is, more often than not, too much for me to bear.

I will never be the same after losing you, but I hope you both are happy doggies, no matter where this crazy universe lands you. And at least to me, you will always be.

Where To Bury A Dog

There are various places within which a dog may be buried. We are thinking now of a setter, whose coat was flame in the sunshine, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any flowering shrub of the garden, is an excellent place to bury a good dog. Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or gnawed at a flavorous bone, or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places, in life or in death. Yet it is a small matter, and it touches sentiment more than anything else.

For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that dog sleeps at long and at last. On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained, and nothing lost -- if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a dog. One place that is best of all.

If you bury him in this spot, the secret of which you must already have, he will come to you when you call -- come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they should not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he is yours and he belongs there.

People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper pitched too fine for mere audition, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them then, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing.